How dare you.

 

Self Made Man is another BDSM Luna. You know how Harry is normally loaded?

Well turns out he wasn't. And he now has NOTHING.

My main problem with this is the use of safety words. Ignoring any real world issues, the two don't discuss the usage of safety words until after the first time, in which Luna calls stop, and he doesn't. If safety words weren't discussed later, and just introduced, this would be fine. However, with the addition, that just smacks of rapey!harry.

Also, it's not been updated in six months.


But as I said in the pet peeves thread, people just can't write Luna right.

 

I read this a little while back, when it was initially linked here, and while I loved the premise of the story, it lost me in execution towards the end as well.

I couldn't find the story I was going to contribute (or in fact, even remember the author, or title (or even much about what happened in it)), but I assure you it was cracky and fun.

 

Well, I was surprised as hell to find my story mentioned here at all when I was running a Google search for references to it.

Oruma: Firstly, for what it's worth, I've picked up the story again this year. I have revised the first 22 chapters & fixed punctuation, dialogue and some plot points. There is about 8% more text than there was form the original, and another 2 new chapters posted in the last 2 weeks as well. The updated story is here in case you choose to amend your list: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7808517/1/Thoughts_of_Pudding_2012

Secondly, other than Rors' fic (L, L & LL), there *weren't* any other H/Hr/L fics out there until I started posting Thoughts of Pudding. What is overly cliched now, certainly wasn't 3 and a half years ago when I started my fic. I started the 'Lunar Harmony' trend (and coined the phrase as well).

Portus: To paraphrase Tim Curry (Frank N Furter), 'I didn't write it for you!' My reviewers seem pretty happy with my characterisations and the way the story is going. 'Just awful' doesn't provide any useful info regarding what you found so bad about it, so I'm just going to assume you prefer a different style of fic.

Anyway, I just wanted to add my responses to comments made. Read it or not as you want, and while I doubt it will appeal to all DLP members, I do recognise some of you in my reviews and alerts.

Cheers,

Brian64

 

As a devoted fan of Harry/Luna, I will humbly bump this thread, at least to see if anybody still has an interest in this pairing. Personally, I believe they have an emotional connection and genuine chemistry in canon that even Honks and Harry/Fleur is missing. They balance each other out quite well, and when OotP ended, I was genuinely hoping that they'd have some sort of mad hookup. Rowling had to even bait us by making Harry take her to the Slug Party. :/

 

Potter, No Angst

This story hasn't been mentioned here, mostly because it wasn't around back when the thread was created. Shameless plug, of course, but it does fit the criteria.

Harry was sorted into Ravenclaw, and he became friends with Luna. 5th year fic, no Voldemort, but despite the title, it's quite angsty in places (though more humorous than anything else). The emphasis was on Harry being in Ravenclaw and not knowing Ron, Ginny and Hermione as good friends. It'll probably get updated once I'm done with We'll All Fall, but it's nearly 35k, so it should be a good time waster.

 

Harry being some sort of Casanova just seems so utterly wrong to me, on any level, in any AU.

Also... the whole "...so she retreated to her dorm, drew the curtains, and slept restlessly, dreaming of her tousled black locks splayed across the bedsheets while someone rubbed their hands down her body" is hilarious.

Locks? Hah.

 

Out of context, I might say the line is amusing, but whats your issue with the word 'locks'? It's a normal term referencing hair.

 

How do you romance someone who is quirky, comedic relief? Who's a little pathetic, in a way, and only a bit better than a caricature? Writing Luna well is tough. Although I've looked, I've not found anything since '11 that's worth posting there. Of course, there a few good stories that feature her, they don't do her enough justice in my book - either overemphasizing or underemphasizing her quirks, trying to explain them away or make her seem like a loon-- or like an enlightened mystic. It's like they deny the most interesting aspect of her character when authors do that.

 

Agree with Chime. Not even one good fic where Luna isn't some fake or Oracle of Delphi II: Reborn ? Damn.

 

The main problem I see is that romancing Luna is about on par with romancing a child. I think Harry/Luna could work nicely but not with the way Rowling developed the character -- and sadly, it's pretty hard to change Luna and keep her still reminiscent of her canon self.

 

Contemplating Clouds is always nice to reread, but it set the bar way too high for me with the way it handles her character.
The pitfalls most writers unwittingly drop into have been discussed to death earlier in the thread, so it amazes me that so little content for this pairing exists that doesn't fall prey to the trappings of weak but easy characterization.

Potter, No Angst made the attempt, but the 90s teenage drama warped her position from the sweet spot on the normal girl - insane seer spectrum to somewhere around 'A (somewhat) less creepy Ginny.' Which is refreshing, but not exactly ideal for me.

I've never really understood the creepy paedophilic angle of this. Unless you're aging Harry up or changing his circumstances (a la P,NA), they're both pretty similarly underdeveloped for their age.

 

I guess I really don't see how Harry is as 'underdeveloped' as Luna. Harry's a bit shy, Luna isn't really in touch with the world at all. That's a pretty big difference in development...

 

In order to prevent rehashes of old arguments, I'll link you to a post by Tehan earlier in this thread on this entire matter.

 

Fucking finally a characterization I can agree with.

One problem that seems to destroy any Luna in fanfics is the holding of her original interpretation (or whatever the author's rendition of her is) as sacrosanct and unchangeable. She might be change someone's life in the course of the fic, but Luna herself almost never goes through any noticeable character development.

While there is nothing wrong with the loony, cheerful Luna Lovegood we all know and love, when that characterization is driven like a immovable stake into the narrative, she stops being a real person and becomes a device for the rest of the cast to bounce their dialogue and actions off of.

It's possible for there to be a real girl under all the butterbeer caps and nattering on about nargles, maturing and growing up on her own, without the former detracting from the latter. It's just that so few authors even try, and those that do often do so poorly, discarding or mangling the whimsiness that is integral and endearing about the character.

 

That's the unfortunate side-effect of her often being portrayed as the manic pixie dreamgirl to Harry's angsting hollywood protagonist.
Luna is hard as fuck to write well, and writing romance that isn't shitty wish fulfillment is even harder. Putting the two together is something I doubt we'll ever read.

 

The main issue is that people are and aren't static. If we pretend that Luna is a real person, I think we can all agree that Luna will retain her quirky characteristics into death, but she will also change. The issue is that authors seldom attempt to represent this character growth -- and to be fair, it is hard. What kind of person would Luna become, under the right circumstances? How do her beliefs change when she grows closer to Harry and his problems? How does Harry's beliefs change when he interacts more with Luna's train of thought?

You have to understand Luna's perspective, which is hard, she's simply not straight forward like Hermione, or inscrutable like the lesser characters. Too many authors just say fuck it and say she's just been pretending this whole time--

But I believe Luna genuinely believes in what she says-- and likely doesn't at the same time. She uses her beliefs to escape the world she maybe doesn't like, wanting them to be true while perhaps knowing shrewdly underneath they likely are not. It's a defense mechanism and a kind of power- nobody can enter into Luna's space, nobody can know what Luna knows. She has her own answer for everything and that defines her, it keeps her safe. My interpretation is that as someone were to grow closer to her, she would have trouble letting them into her private place, to confessing the real truth, whatever that might be. I think she's somewhere between manic and very sane, a state that's not that uncommon from my experiences.

It's all been said, but I don't mind discussing it if it sparks someone to try again. I'd try writing a Luna story... if I could, but for me, she's almost too boring of a character. All of her conflicts feel... internal? It's like she doesn't have a stake in anything that real, she's always felt indestructable to me, a character who is entirely static and safe within the HP world. No harm can befall her because she has coped with isolation very well, she's fortified herself in a wonderful little world of her own. Nothing short of death or... something could bring her from that.

 

Boring? The last word that I'd ever thought people would use to describe Luna Lovegood is boring. She's damn interesting and if anything, that's why so many people find her difficult to write. Characters like Daphne and Fleur can be blank canvases to insert personalities. Luna is starkly different.

The main reason why people find it difficult to write Luna is because most people treat her like some prophetess or lunatic. She's a teenage girl, albeit a quirky one who been bullied. It's a problem that a lot of people have in the HP Fandom: many authors, including some DLP ones, tend to write women as objectified love interests, as opposed to real people. Fleur, Hermione, Daphne - they're all written as love interests to accentuate Harry or amplify something in his journey.

Luna, however, is her own person and has a distinctive personality which refuses to conform. That's exactly why she's an interesting character. In order to write her well, people will have to realize that she's a normal girl with normal fears. She does react coldly when people (i.e. Hermione) rebuke her father, and she does show genuine sorrow at her father's situation and her mother's death. She's also an incredibly brave nonconformist.

Tl;dr, people will start writing Luna well when they approach her as a real character rather than a foil or a plot-device for Harry. Give her character development, instead of driving the character development of others, and you will succeed. Refer to Tehan and NMB's works.

 

No love for Retroactive, then?

 

I imagine Luna as one of those rare but wonderful people who seem to have a near-infinite capacity for love and empathy. (Certainly, I think this is the thing that would attract Harry to her, especially as he battles the darker impulses within himself.) My head-canon increasingly imagines her as a committed pacifist -- I keep writing and scrapping story snippets that portray the conflict between her ideals and her commitment to Voldemort's defeat.

I agree. As I surmised in another thread, I'm not even sure it wholly matters to Luna whether or not Nargles exist. The Wizarding world may be culturally Christian, but I doubt Christianity holds much stock with a population that can change water to wine with a wave of a hand. Not coincidentally, the Wizarding world is a frightening and chaotic place where world-negating terrorists pop up every other generation and everyone is one botched incantation away from being crushed to death by a buffalo. I can see how Nargles et al. could be a useful and comforting explanatory model in lieu of religious belief. Perhaps they let her access a kind of truth that's entirely independent of their strict factuality.

At the same time, I think it's a thing that Luna would start to grow out of as she grows older and becomes more comfortable in her own crowd. She clearly uses these creatures as a defense mechanism to avoid directly engaging in painful topics with her friends. (Luna, where are your shoes? Oh, the Nargles must have took them again. Luna, why are people being mean to you? Oh, it must be the Wrackspurts fuzzing up their brains.) As Caligula pointed out, she's comfortable standing up for her family and for her friends, but I'm not sure she's comfortable standing up for herself. Luna sincerely wants to think the best of people, and therefore refuses to allow others' antagonism towards her to become a source of conflict.

This.